ESL has announced the lineups and starting match schedules for the European and Asian Road to Rio tournaments. The final list of participating teams was determined after the final qualifying stages were completed in Europe and Asia.
European teams will be divided into two groups of 16 participants each. Eight teams from each group will be able to advance to various stages of IEM Major Rio. There are only two places allocated for teams from Asia at the major: two of the four participants in the rating tournament for this region will be able to get into the Challengers stage. The composition of the groups for North and South America will be announced a little later, since the American open qualifiers do not end until September 5.
The position of the teams in the European groups was determined based on the level of their performance at the previous major, as well as in the four qualifying tournaments. Group A included three of the five top teams in the world – FaZe, Cloud9 and Astralis. Natus Vincere tops the list of Group B. Among their closest rivals – MOUZ and Vitality (5th and 7th places in the ranking, respectively). Matches between these teams will take place on the Mediterranean island of Malta from October 4 to October 9.
